Posted
by
msmash
on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @06:45PM
from the fair-play dept.

In a ruling with potentially sweeping consequences for the so-called gig economy, the California Supreme Court on Monday made it much more difficult for companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. The New York Times: The decision could eventually require companies like Uber, many of which are based in California, to follow minimum-wage and overtime laws and to pay workers' compensation and unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, potentially upending their business models. Industry executives have estimated that classifying drivers and other gig workers as employees tends to cost 20 to 30 percent more than classifying them as contractors. It also brings benefits that can offset these costs, though, like the ability to control schedules and the manner of work. "It's a massive thing -- definitely a game-changer that will force everyone to take a fresh look at the whole issue," said Richard Meneghello, a co-chairman of the gig-economy practice group at the management-side law firm Fisher Phillips. The court essentially scrapped the existing test for determining employee status, which was used to assess the degree of control over the worker. That test hinged on roughly 10 factors, like the amount of supervision and whether the worker could be fired without cause.

I am just wondering what business model that employs any significant number of people you think is NOT based on exploiting people desperate for work?Of course, there is desperate and there is desperate, but that is pretty much why it is called work, not fun, and its not easy to be paid to have fun.

Of course the translation of what you are saying is actually:'I am set up enough to have a solid job with prospects, and I see no reason why people who are not should have a job, because they cannot earn enough to make it worthwhile in my view'And that is pretty god damn bad.

Weird - someone who call himself a Christian actually acting like a Christian ought to. Bible verses on the bottom of a cup seem a whole lot less offensive to non-Christians than exploitative business practices *should* seem to Christians.

'I am set up enough to have a solid job with prospects, and I see no reason why people who are not should have a job, because they cannot earn enough to make it worthwhile in my view'

There are a couple of issues. The first is the difference in negotiating power. In a high-skill or high-demand occupation, there is a vaguely level playing field between employer and employee. If the employer doesn't treat the employee well, then the employee can leave and continue employment elsewhere (and the departure is likely to financially hurt the employer). In a low-skill occupation, there is a huge imbalance. The employee is replaceable, but probably needs the job to be able to afford to live.

this is actually cheaper and better for Uber, - first they can forbid you to work for Lyft (anti-competitive clause) even in your off-time (you can still work for McDonalds in off-time i guess)
- second they can give you minimum wage and not a cent more (now some drivers get less but some much more)
- third they can employ you for maximum of 30 hours per week so you don't have any benefits like big grocery stores already do, in other words additional benefits costs are significantly red

phone, car and commercial auto insurance will cost a bit.So paying all or part the costs of an smart phone + data plan. Car costs like full mileage (dead time and dead heading moves say return from a long trip to the main area) maybe even airport que waiting time as well.

Would it, though? Businesses go where the markets are. Uber might want to move where labor is cheaper, but the vast majority of their customers are - and by extension, their drivers need to be - in expensive urban areas.

Companies also need to have employees with sufficient skill to do the job. For many (if not most) companies, those people don't exist in sufficient numbers in cheaper places, and their existing employees have no interest in moving.

Well, it isn't. What would be a fair "livable" minimum wage nationwide - something that would cover San Francisco, CA, and McAllen, TX? SF is 3.4 times more expensive [bestplaces.net] than McAllen... Rather than have a Federal minimum wage, it should be a local - or at highest, State - kind of thing.

I'm all for states rights... We shouldn't have a federal minimum wage if the states can have their own. In fact, a LOT of federal rules and regulations are unnecessary for the same reason. The states should be left to make their own rules about most things anyway.

(Shush though, you might sound like Trump if you keep this perspective up very long.)

The Right is more along the lines of, "I earned mine, you go earn yours". Part of that is setting policy that enables and rewards achievement. Not putting up roadblocks to keep people from advancing. Not bucketing people, not creating victim culture and not promoting mediocrity. Letting people keep what they earn and not giving handouts to those that don't try. Promoting the concept of being responsible for yourself.

Please don't pretend there's any left wing in US politics, because there is not.

The problem... is stupid-fuck, meaningless, divisive terms like "left" and "right" but to be fair, they fool a rather large proportion of otherwise seemingly intelligent people.

As for "liberal" and "conservative," these words are also rather meaningless, as a traditional "European conservative" believed that power should be retained by the feudal aristocracy (allowing the peasants to own arms and defend themselves would be, by this defintion, as "left wng" as it gets.

This freethinking, gun-owning vegetarian apologizes, in advance, for any cognitive duress experienced by our clearly 'well-intentioned but otherwise government-educated' brethren in the UK - lay off the soy, boys; the effects of phytoestrogen are showing...;)

I see the left as that homeless guy who'd give you his very last dollar if he thought it'd improve your day.

I see the right as the people who'd come to this homeless guy and sell him something he doesn't need, to get that last dollar, as if it were the last one on earth.

Most folks on the right are self-starters, independent, etc, not without compassion or morals. But they're DRIVEN by these factors. They earned every dollar that they have and are mighty protective of what they have. They earned it, they s

So the right wing generally wants to improve things for the middle classes and try to life people into the middle classes.

Citation sorely fucking needed.

It seems it's more akin to:

left: you have yours, we're going to take it from you and give to someone else.
right: i have mine, fuck you.

The way I see it is:

Left: We'll educate the embetter the poor and we'll have a better economy with worker that will make more and spend it and a rising river lifts everybody
Right: If we give more money to the rich, they'll buy more stuff, which will require more workers and lift the economy

Your characterization doesn't hold. The right is also full of people who are dirt poor but still think their ship will come in. Meanwhile, there's some crazy wealthy people leaning left out there. Also a lot of people who work for a living that couldn't be called unsuccessful.

Most of the trap aspect of the safety net is the result of the right trying to push people out of the net before they're quite able to land on their feet.

A big issue with the safety net is having it done so horribly that in order to have the net you basically have to throw everything away. To be on food stamps you cannot have ANY savings. Having just a little in your account gets you kicked off food stamps, you can lose housing assistance, etc. Why are the poor underbanked? Because of this.

How do you dig yourself out of being on welfare, by saving money. But when having $500 in the bank* means you lose the $500 of food stamps for your family of 5, how can a

Employers are under no obligation to negotiate with you. Take it or leave it. That's the fucking problem.

Why should they be? Should they be obligated to take a losing deal that ends their company, and thus provides no jobs? Who says which negotiations they must take on? Do you think YOU should be forced to negotiate until you don't get what you need out of the job? Should you be forced to work for somebody because somebody else struck a deal with them? No? Why not? Should you be able to walk away and pursue something else? Of course you should. Just like a business owner should. If they don't want to offer en

A- wealthy people can outwait starving people.B- it becomes a horrific dystopia when there is a labor glutC- No money getting to the bottom stifles the economyD-Leading to instability, violence, murder, and overthrow of the government fairly frequently. When that fails, usually genocide.

In any negotiation where you aren't just as willing to walk away as the other party you have no power.

More than that - you can't have a free market (in this case, the labor market) if participants aren't free and able to decline a given deal. While one can argue that workers are FREE to walk away, the necessity of paying for food, water, shelter, transportation, and medical care means they typically are not ABLE to do so.

That alone doesn't undermine collective bargaining. In an environment with collective bargaining, saying 'you're fired' without just cause would mean a strike by every other member of the collective. If this is not happening in 'at will' states, then that's a separate failure.

When I worked my way through university, I worked two jobs. Neither of which paid me a 'living wage', and without which I would have left carrying one hell of a lot more debt.

Is it your position that it is better to live of the state (which of course means other people who can be bothered working) than work?Is it your position that people who dont have enough skills to get 'a living wage' dont deserve a job?

Enforced? Get a state to do something that isn't bought and paid for by lobbyists and campaign contributions?

C'mon.

Organize a union? With Right To Work legislation? Nope. Sever employees that try to organize? Ask the NLRB how many complaints are on file.

This is about: Need To Eat. This is about not subsidizing businesses. This is about not having businesses pay so low that people have to use subsidies to live-- eat, get housing, medical care, and transportation to just, yes, live.

Is it your contention that employers would rather fire everyone and rage quit than raise their prices a bit and pay a living wage? Or do you believe that labor is so cheap that employers are in the habit of hiring more people than they actually need to run their business?

Because otherwise, if the minimum wage increases, employers will pay it so they can continue to make money. Since their competition will also have to pay it, they won't be disadvantaged. Then, we the taxpayers won't have to subsidize their

It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

That is your opinion. In the opinion of some who seek a supplementary income, a job with is lesser rate of pay is acceptable.

A student who lives at home, a retiree with a pension, a housewife with free time while her kids are in the school each want to earn some additional cash in their free time. You demand that they be denied the right to some jobs which they would voluntarily accept.

This is why conservatives and libertarians regard leftism as inherently fascist; Leftists such as yourself seek the power

One could say, you are forcing everyone into this kind of job market where no one pays a living wage, not even for full time employment. We are in fact, required, by your thinking, to hold several 'little jobs', juggle their schedules within the confines of our own lives, so your wife can take up part-time babysitting at a wage no one could survive on?

You see what's happening, your personal freedom claim is affecting everyone around you. When you

A student living at home? Well, perhaps if his education was affordable, his parents could give him an allowance.And there is a LOT of difference between making a few bucks for a few hours and working full time to just be able to buy ramen to be able not to starve.

They brought this on themselves by using investor money to lowball prices while allowing airports and other entities to take a 40% cut of the fares. I know in LA that drivers make almost no money unless they get a 1-2 hour trip from LAX. They lose money if they have to take someone downtown from the air port. I question why people are agreeing to work for that rate. They literally get $2-3 for waiting in line to drive someone downtown from LAX. I tipped my last driver $150 for driving me from Pasadena. O

Having more people on the dole means more control so the government can take better caer of the people.

Save it the Libertarian/Conservative fairy tale shit.

The housing market has broken from the labor market. In the olden days, housing prices were limited by people's incomes.

No more. Thanks to cheap money for the last decade, hedge funds looking for returns, they have used that cheap money to buy housing; which subsequently pushed housing prices out of the reach of many people.

All over the country.

However, the market for labor - all up and down the food chain - hasn't kept up because unlike housing (and land), you can offshore labor one way or another (H1-bs, anyone?)

That's why in Silly Valley you can make what would be awesome money in most parts of the country and yet live pay check to pay check.

Housing can only sell/rent for what people can afford. Empty units make no one money

This is not true. Well, the second part, anyway. In a boom / bubble, the appreciation on an asset like a house can be significantly more than the rental income. A lot of properties are being bought with no intention of renting them (tenants may decrease the resale value by increasing wear on the interiors) so that they can be sold in a few years for a large profit. This happens in any market where a large proportion of the participants are speculators, rather than producers or consumers. The US used to

If real estate were a consumable product like toilet paper, where there is no point in having more than you can use, that would apply. But real estate is not a consumable. It's call REAL estate specifically because it is immovable. That makes it a good store of value, thus giving very wealthy individuals a strong incentive to purchase more than they can use - even if it sits empty, it still holds value. And just like what happens whenever you have too many investment dollars chasing too few good investme

Yeah....that seems to be a stickler in this country: many folks base a person's value on their ability to produce, IQ, and wealth (hence why Eric Trump is "worth" more than those school teachers in....well, everywhere.)

Zuckerberg gets his ass kissed for pimping out people's data (and he'll never stop) while others get kicked in the ass for caring about the little things in life and the little people.

We have a segment of society that will literally kill to protect the unborn but when it comes to a living child's well-being, it's dog eat dog.

What a twisted fucked up society we live in.

Don't mind me; I have a great inheritance from a father that invested in defense stocks. Every time a POTUS says "bomb", I make enough to buy a low end BMW. And people kiss my ass because I got money from choosing my parents well.

The money for the new wages has to be created from something.
Costs are taken out of company growth. A company in CA stops growing to cover new wage costs.
New prices get put onto the price of a service and products.
Less profit for them company that offers work. Less jobs on offer.
Pass the full costs of the new wages to the people buying products and services.
People stop spending in CA and the company has less to pay their workers. Growth stops and less jobs are created in CA.
The few skilled peop

The most likely answer is the same way they deal with an increase in fuel/food/other costs. They pass it on to the customer. You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?

Of course, that can (and often does) lead to a virtuous cycle. The employees have more money, so they can afford to buy things, so businesses have more money. At the same time, less demand for SNAP and other safety net services means we don't have that coming out of our pockets anymore. That also means more people with more to spend.

As a nice bonus, since low wage payers are forced to stop dipping into our pockets through subsidized payroll, they get our money based on merit, just like the market intended:-)

Re "You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?"
That would be an investment buying new equipment that grows profits, saves on wages.
New computers, new production line, more capacity, an investment that lower past costs.

Re "The employees have more money"
With everyone passing on mores costs in CA to cover the regulated wage costs.
More money goes to pay for the wage gap into savings or something productive, usefu

Further mechanization is a red herring. Remember that flap about 'flippy'? Then the reality set in that it was expensive and slow even compared to employees with raises. Eventually, the automation will work and it will be introduced even if we half the minimum wage. Hopefully, by then the old guard that's stuck in the 19th century will have died off and we can talk seriously about how to restructure our economy so it can work even as more and more labor is replaced by machines. That's a GOOD thing.

Re "You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?"
That would be an investment buying new equipment that grows profits, saves on wages.
New computers, new production line, more capacity, an investment that lower past costs.

Re "The employees have more money"
With everyone passing on mores costs in CA to cover the regulated wage costs.
More money goes to pay for the wage gap into savings or something productive, usefull.
Food costs, transport all reflect the mandated wage costs that further takes away from any wage rise for any one worker.
Everything a poor worker needs every month costs more and the new costs passed on are not covered by a wage rise.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that English is not your first language (in which case, kudos to you - truly - for trying to learn what is a bitch of a language), because what you have written here only bears a passing resemblance to it. But doing my best to parse, you're saying that because things ge

You are an employee if ANY of the following are true:* They have any control over your clothing, besides requiring safety equipment* They control your hours, rather than give deadlines.* They can require you to do things using their method, rather than accepting any method.* They make any attempt to find out if you are working for other people, let alone prevent you from doing this.* They decide which sub-contractor does the work, rather than the head contractor.

This is one that I think is actually a challenge. Granted, the ruling only applies to CA DOL wage orders (effectively minimum wage plus a few associated items), but for my business we hire two very experienced mostly-retired engineers (72 and 77 years old). One of them goes away for a month or so at a time, and the other (older) one is easing into retirement. Both want flexibility, and it does provide each with a tax benefit. Neither wants any of our benefits, nor the pay penalty associated with them.

So, should they be part-time employees? The primary business part of the equation means yes if they work for us, but no if they work directly for one of our clients. This seems arbitrary.

A third person we work with just "retired," and does work for 5-6 other companies and likely well over 50 hours per week. Should he pay social security tax based on the base salary at each employer, or in aggregate as his own business?

It doesn't really impact me as an employer-- it is barely $200k of pay per year, and paying an extra $15k in payroll taxes isn't a big deal, but the contractor arrangement is what makes their expertise available in the first place.

A third person we work with just "retired," and does work for 5-6 other companies and likely well over 50 hours per week. Should he pay social security tax based on the base salary at each employer, or in aggregate as his own business?

Umm.. aggregate. It's always aggregate. If he works for 6 jobs for two months each, and makes 200k at each of them, he only pays the limit for social security once. 6 jobs instead of contractor status would mean you'd have to get cash back instead of pay the money upfront.

Please, no! Compliance is cheaper than litigating the vague crap. Even things that are "clearly" spelled out in wage orders still have a lot of vague areas that are subject to interpretation by people who are programmed with "Employer Bad, Employee Honest and Abused."

We now have to have a fscking time clock for engineers without their EIT (non-exempt), which is completely stupid but needed for compliance. But at least the requirement is clear...

That is basically what law makers have been trying to do for decades, except that they are also trying to not step on anyones feet, not upset business, consider the next elections, keep in mind their campaign contributors stakes in the whole thing, manage public relations and avoid tricky interview questions, negotiate with their fellow lawmakers over compromises and not forget about the impact on the small business of their wife or best fri

Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits. Uber is one of them, and they can suck it up.

A worker-centric gig economy isn't managed by the platform: the workers should decide whether/how they deliver the goods or services, have some meaningful control over prices/profits, and be able to accrue a meaningful reputation.

If the gig platform forces its workers to behave 90% like employees, then yeah, round that number up and call them employees.

Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits

Half? I was going to object that it seems like that's 100%, but then I remembered the other half is avoiding taxi/hotel/[whatever industry] regulations. It's not like Hyatt couldn't have (technically) converted apartments to rentals, it's that they have to obey the law (well, not flout it that blatantly.)

or having proper commercial drivers insurance. Modern and very safe cars mean We've yet to see a real test of what happens when there's a multi-million dollar accident caused by an Uber driver. But it's only a matter of time.

Uber sets all prices. e.g. it decides how much the employees get paid. Also, Uber will fire you if you don't show up to work. e.g. Uber often has unprofitable rides. Uber won't tell you what the ride is until you pick the person up and if you try to guess and turn down too many rides (or if you turn rides away after you find out they're not profitable) they'll fire you (e.g. ban you from the app). They control what you earn and when you earn it.

Screw your company benefits. They are what corporations use to keep pay down and explain "ohh but your benefits." You know what is a better benefit than 401k or cheaper dental? Being able to ACTUALLY FUCKING WORK. And only work when you work. And keeping costs down. There is room for both kinds of enterprises, just ask Fedex and UPS. Go screw yourselves with trying to regulate people out of work. I personally still want to be able to use Uber and pay lower rates while providing a method for random people to

Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits. Uber is one of them, and they can suck it up.

A worker-centric gig economy isn't managed by the platform: the workers should decide whether/how they deliver the goods or services, have some meaningful control over prices/profits, and be able to accrue a meaningful reputation.

If the gig platform forces its workers to behave 90% like employees, then yeah, round that number up and call them employees.

Half?

I think that is a very conservative estimate. The entire "gig" economy is about moving costs from the employer onto the employee, traditionally with contracting you were paid a huge premium over the full time equivalent salary for giving up your rights (paid holidays, pensions and what not) and job security (a contractor can be shown the door at any time, for any reason). The "gig" economy is trying to make everyone a contractor without giving them the benefits of a contractor.

Will this change also affect contractors that were independent contractors long before this new gig economy trend? For example, if a family owned rug store offers to tell rug installing contractors about sales done that day (with the approval of the customer), are those contractors now under threat of becoming employees? What if the store offers to arrange the timing of the appointment for installation?

Will this change also affect contractors that were independent contractors long before this new gig economy trend?

Maybe!

if a family owned rug store... are those contractors now under threat of becoming employees

Nope! The reason Uber's drivers are now considered employees is because they are performing the "usual course of business" of Uber. The Rug Store sells rugs. Now, if they sold specialty rugs that had to be installed and where the vast majority of customers would buy the rug if and only if the rugs were installed by the Rug Store or their contractors, such that "buying a rug" was synonymous with "buying an installed rug" then they might have to W2 the installers. If it wasn't expected that the rug purchase and the rug installation were supplied by the same company, then no.

What if the store offers to arrange the timing of the appointment for installation?

That's the same "control over contractor's actions/methods" test that existed in both standards. So, while there is clearly some line of control, it should remain the same.

If the only jobs they ever get are from the rug store, and all payment is processed by the rug store, then I would argue that indeed, the installers are employed by the rug store.

I think the real issue is that all of these companies started out with some decent ideas, stuff like "I'm driving from my town into the city 40 miles away, anyone else going that way need a ride?" and "I'm going out of town for a few weeks, why not rent out my place?" to people turning into taxi drivers and buying property only to

It's as if Silicon Valley created a time machine that takes workers back to the (lack of) labour laws in the USA in the mid 19th century. At least that's what I understand from the ideas espoused as "the gig economy."

It's as if Silicon Valley created a time machine that takes workers back to the (lack of) labour laws in the USA in the mid 19th century. At least that's what I understand from the ideas espoused as "the gig economy."

Some of it actually is going back to when you could have a decent chance of surviving as an independent worker.

I'd set one of the basic tests as this: If the standard deal is I can list on their app that "I will frob your widgets for $20" and they deal with getting me paid for a cut of whatever my fee for frobbing widgets is, I'm a contractor. If they pay me $10 an hour for frobbing widgets on demand, I'm an employee even if I get to pick my hours.

The basic crux of the problem here is part-time employment. It's been abused and misused to an extreme that is just unimaginable.

What used to be a rare sight, a fluke, a unicorn in the overall job market, the part-time job. The paper-boy route for the aspiring teenager. Or the babysitting gig for the stay-at-home mom.

Someone took this and ran into hell with in it and dragged us all along for a painful experience that we're currently living through. Part-time was never supposed to be a career choice. It was never supposed to be the only thing you could find. It was a stop-gap, a place for the teenager or young adult. Now it's become THE JOB MARKET. Fulltime employment is hard to come by now.

Why? Well, because part-time employees are cheaper. You don't have to pay benefits, or retirement plans for part-time employees. It's supposed to be a temporary job after all, not your career. But now, it is. The part-time job has metamorphosed into the mechanism by which the employer is abusing the employee. When they realized the gold-mine of cheap labor they had with the part-time employee, they did any good business person would do. They got rid of the expensive full-time employees and just hired a few more part-timers to fill the gaps.

Now employers are taking it a step further. Our employees, they're not employees at all. At least on paper. We pay them as contractors and as such, we're not subject to ANY employer/employee rules at all. Even cheaper. Nice. Another win for the top. Yay?

The race to the bottom is making no winners except for those at the very top. And you jerkoffs who come in here and scream personal rights about part-time or 'gig employment', you can just go take a flying leap. Your kind landed us in this awful situation, and I don't think you have any right to say anything anymore. The part-time job needs to be restored to a temporary thing, not the new normal. An awful lot of people died, spent time in jails, or detention camps, to win the rights we have as employees and I think it's pretty fucking selfish for some of our population to sell that out for their own selfish reasons.

I do contract work for many companies and my work is core to what they do. I set my own hours, use almost all my own equipment, work in my own office, subcontract out some QA and repairs, I even bill in 15 minute intervals - I don't see how I'm different from an Uber driver. The existing test of control made perfect sense.

Question - will I now have to be an employee of the American companies I'm currently doing contract work for? or just companies in California?

Not the same. Your statement "I do contract work for many companies..." is the *primary* difference between a contractor and employee. A contractor typically has multiple clients, either back-to-back or at the same time. A contractor is running his own business, and doing so requires a steady stream of customers. A contractor who works for one client for an extended period of time is in danger of being classified as an employee. You're different than an Uber driver because an Uber driver works for only one

You are a clear case of a self-employed worker. In EU you'll have a VAT registration number.
In Italy here is the problem of the fake VAT registrations, when one self-employed worker has only one customer, and when tax inspector find it both the worker and the customer are fined for tax evasion.
In Italy there are some exception of the rules. Taxi drivers and limousine service drivers have VAT registrations despite normally having only one dispatcher service. Baby sitters, cleaners, and caregivers are consi

This isn't just about Uber, etc. This pretty much puts a bullet in contract engineering/programming in CA. Creating soft/hardware is part of a tech company's regular business, so this judgement says that anybody who participates in that would automatically be an employee even if it's a brief or specialized gig.

This just makes 3rd parties richer, namely the gov't and the "consulting companies" that more & more companies are using as intermediaries. "Consulting companies" is in quotes because there are co

California issues drivers licenses to illegals. Once you have a valid license, it's trivial to get insurance (if you have money). What else does Uber "vet" beyond the ability to get in and out of the car without hurting oneself?

What you're implying is completely false. This does nothing to illegals. Illegals can not drive for Uber/Lyft. Period.

And this does nothing to legal immigrants either, for instance, refugees, that can prove they've been driving in the State with a State's driver's license for more than one year. Those will still be allowed to drive for Uber/Lyft (assuming they can maintain more than ~4.6 stars after they've given more than 50 rides, the exact cut-off point v